Happytime Murders Red Band Trailer Is Insane R-Rated Muppet Madness

7 months ago

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The Happytime Murders trailer is here. This thing is very much red band and totally NSFW. More so than anything you’re likely to see for a wide release movie. You’ve been warned. Shockingly, this comes from the mind of Brian Henson, son of Jim Henson, but this is not in any way what you might expect from a name like that. This trailer proudly boasts that the same guy who directed Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island and Muppets Tonight is responsible for this debauchery. And you’re not ready for the debauchery in store.

This first footage for The Happytime Murders is in no way messing around. Puppets getting blown to pieces, puppet prostitutes, who happen to use the term “rotten cotton,” which has disgusting but kind of hilarious implications. This thing is so very NSFW that it’s hard to believe it even got made. Let alone from the son of the guy who created The Muppets. What a time to be alive. Perhaps the icing in the cake is getting to see someone snort ecstasy, namely Melissa McCarthy, through a piece of licorice. The last shot in the trailer is particularly surprising for several reasons.

No Sesame. All Street. The Happytime Murders is a filthy comedy set in the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles where puppets and humans coexist. Two clashing detectives with a shared secret, one human (Melissa McCarthy) and one puppet, are forced to work together again to solve the brutal murders of the former cast of a beloved classic puppet television show. In addition to McCarthy, who looks like she’s having a ton of fun here, the movie also stars Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale, Leslie David Baker, and Elizabeth Banks. But this feels like the kind of movie that will have room for some cameos.

There is definitely a bit of a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? vibe going on here. Only if that movie were extremely R-rated. Despite all of the low-brow humor in here, taking the guy who probably formed a lot of people’s childhoods with his work on The Muppets and having him take puppets, put them in a world with humans and make it into a seedy crime drama is kind of ingenious. If they can let some of the cleverness shine through in the midst of all the sex, drugs and language, this could be something pretty great.

The screenplay for this insanity comes from Todd Berger, with a story he and Brian Henson cooked up. The movie is set to arrive in theaters on August 17, so we can all close out the summer movie season in style. This feels like a movie that is either going to be surprisingly great, or amazingly terrible. Either way, it feels like the kind of thing you’re going to have to see to believe. Be sure to check out the first trailer for The Happytime Murders below.